Researchers at the UCLA-led Southern California Particle Center
won an $8 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to research the sources of pollutants and their effects on
health, UCLA officials announced Tuesday.
The decision, made by the EPA on Nov. 17, came just days after
the agency’s annual air quality report, which named Los
Angeles the nation’s smog capital. The city passed Houston
and the San Joaquin Valley which had fared worse in the rankings of
recent years.
Air quality in the L.A. area exceeded the EPA’s smog
standard on 84 days this year, the agency said.
The EPA chose the center at UCLA for the grant because it has
“such good researchers in the area,” said Bobbye Smith,
regional liaison to the EPA Office of Research and Development.
Air pollution in Los Angeles and surrounding areas is a pressing
environmental concern, making UCLA researchers good at what they
do, Smith said.
The other recipients of the grant are Johns Hopkins University,
Harvard University, University of Rochester and UC Davis.
“We’ve done the most extensive characterization of
particles in the Los Angeles Basin that there have been,”
said John Froines, professor at the UCLA School of Public Health
and director of the UCLA Center for Occupational and Environmental
Health.
The grant will allow further research on the health effects of
exposure to airborne particle matter ““ “the things you
breathe in that are solid, as opposed to vapors,” Froines
said.
The center received a similar grant six years ago, and this new
five-year grant is “a renewal of that grant for a second
period of time,” Froines said.
With the funding, the center hopes to accomplish four priority
projects, which plan to examine particulate matter exposure and
toxicity, its exacerbation of asthma and its effect on elderly
people with certain diseases.
The center is comprised of researchers from UCLA as well as UC
Irvine, Michigan State University, USC, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, and the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
The center has already conducted studies that show ultra-fine
particles in the air, produced by combinations of fossil fuels,
appear to be the most toxic.
The toxins cause cancer, heart disease, neurological effects,
and birth complications in addition to causing allergy-related
conditions, such as asthma, the center said.
Los Angeles could lose federal transportation funding if the
area continues to violate the smog standard by 2021.
“Most of the air pollution derives from what we would call
mobile sources,” like trucks, buses, cars, planes and ships,
Froines said.
The source and the health consequences of the ultra-fine
particles in the Los Angeles basin are different than in other
locations around the country.
“California has received more research grants than any
other state,” Smith said.
Region 9, which includes California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii,
has received one-tenth of the entire EPA extramural budget,
approximately $8 to 10 million per year.
For each grant, the EPA receives anywhere from 100 to 200
applications, Smith said.
The strongest proposals are subject to a series of detailed
review processes that examine their scientific objective and
regional relevancy.
With reports from Sara Taylor, Bruin senior staff, and Bruin
wire services.